Jan of the Windmill Part 11

"So it be," said George, and he laughed no longer.

"It's the name of a place, then," said the Cheap Jack; "and it ain't to be expected I should know the names of all the places in the world, George, my dear."

It was a great triumph for the Cheap Jack, as George's face betrayed. If George had trusted him a little more, he might have known the meaning of the mysterious word years ago. The name of a place! The place from which the letter was written. The place where something might be learned about the writer of the letter, and of the gentleman to whom it was written. For George knew so much.

It was written to a gentleman, and to a gentleman who had money, and who had secrets; and, therefore, a gentleman from whom money might be got, by interfering in his secrets.

The miller's man was very ignorant and very stupid, in spite of a certain low cunning not at all incompatible with gross ignorance.

He had no knowledge of the world. His very knowledge of malpractices and mischief was confined to the evil doings of one or two other ill-conditioned country lads like himself, who robbed their neighbors on dark nights, and disposed of the spoil by the help of such men as the Cheap Jack and the landlord of the public- house at the bottom of the hill.

But by loitering about on that stormy night years ago, when he should have been attending to the mill, he had picked up enough to show him that the strange gentleman had no mind to have his proceedings as to the little Jan generally known. This and some sort of traditional idea that "sharp," though penniless men had at times wrung a great deal of money from rich people, by threatening to betray their secrets, was the sole foundation of George's hopes in connection with the letter. It was his very ignorance which hindered him from seeing the innumerable chances against his getting to know any thing important enough, even if he could use his information, to procure a bribe.

He had long given up the idea as hopeless, though he had kept the letter, but it revived when the Cheap Jack solved the puzzle which Abel could not explain, and George finally promised to let his friend read the whole letter for him. He also allowed that it concerned Jan, or that he supposed it to do so. He related Jan's history, and confessed that he had picked up the letter, which was being blown about near the mill, on the night of Jan's arrival.

In this statement there was some truth, and some falsehood; for in the opinion of the miller's man, if your own interest obliged you to confide in a friend, it was at least wise to hedge the confidence by not telling all the truth, or by qualifying it with lies.

This mental process was, however, at least equally familiar to the Cheap Jack, and he did not hesitate, in his own mind, to feel sure that the letter had not been found, but stolen. In which he was farther from the truth than if he had simply believed George.

But then he was not in the neighborhood five years back, and, as it happened, he had never heard of the lost pocket-book.

CHAPTER XIII.

GEORGE AS A MONEYED MAN.--SAL.--THE "WHITE HORSE."-- THE WEDDING.-- THE WINDMILLER'S WIFE FORGETS, AND REMEMBERS TOO LATE.

Excitement, the stifling atmosphere of the public-house, and the spirits he had drunk at his friend's expense, had somewhat confused the brains of the miller's man by the time that the Cheap Jack rose to go. George was, as a rule, sober beyond the wont of the rustics of the district, chiefly from parsimony. When he could drink at another man's expense, he was not always prudent.

"So you've settled to go, my dear?" said the dwarf, as they stood together by the cart. "Business being slack, and parties unpleasantly suspicious, eh?"

"Never you mind," said George, who felt very foolish, and hoped himself successful in looking very wise; "I be going to set up for myself; I'm tired of slaving for another man."

"Quite right, too," said the dwarf; "but all businesses takes money, of which, my dear, I doesn't doubt you've plenty. You always took care of Number One, when you did business with Cheap John."

At that moment, George felt himself a sort of embodiment of shrewd wisdom; he had taken another sip from the gla.s.s, which was still in his hand, and the only drawback to the sense of magnified cunning by which his ideas seemed to be illumined was a less pleasant feeling that they were perpetually slipping from his grasp. To the familiar idea of outwitting the Cheap Jack he held fast, however.

"It be nothin' to thee what a have," he said slowly; "but a don't mind 'ee knowin' so much, Jack, because 'ee can't get at un; haw, haw! Not unless 'ee robs the savings-bank."

The dwarf's eyes twinkled, and he affected to secure some pictures that hung low, as he said carelessly, -

"Savings-banks be good places for a poor man to lay by in. They takes small sums, and a few s.h.i.+llings comes in useful to a honest man, George, my dear, if they doesn't go far in business."

"s.h.i.+llings!" cried George, indignantly; "pounds!" And then, doubtful if he had not said too much, he added, "A don't so much mind 'ee knowing, Jack, because 'ee can't get at 'em!"

"It's a pity you're such a poor scholar, George," said the Cheap Jack, turning round, and looking full at his friend; "you're so sharp, but for that, my dear. You don't think you counts the money over in your head till you makes it out more than it is, now, eh?"

"A can keep things in my yead," said George, "better than most folks can keep a book; I knows what I has, and what other folks can't get at. I knows how I put un in. First, the five-pound bill" -

"They must have stared to see you bring five pound in a lump, George, my dear!" said the hunchback. "Was it wise, do you think?"

"Gearge bean't such a vool as a looks," replied the miller's man.

"A took good care to change it first, Cheap John, and a put it in by bits."

"You're a clever customer, George," said his friend. "Well, my dear? First, the five-pound bill, and then?"

George looked puzzled, and then, suddenly, angry. "What be that to you?" he asked, and forthwith relapsed into a sulky fit, from which the Cheap Jack found it impossible to rouse him. All attempts to renew the subject, or to induce the miller's man to talk at all, proved fruitless. The Cheap Jack insisted, however, on taking a friendly leave.

"Good-by, my dear," said he, "till the mop. You knows my place in the town, and I shall expect you."

The miller's man only replied by a defiant nod, which possibly meant that he would come, but had some appearance of expressing only a sarcastic wish that the Cheap Jack might see him on the occasion alluded to.

In obedience to a yell from its master, the white horse now started forward, and it is not too much to say that the journey to town was not made more pleasant for the poor beast by the fact that the Cheap Jack had a good deal of long-suppressed fury to vent upon somebody.

It was perhaps well for the bones of the white horse that, just as they entered the town, the Cheap Jack brushed against a woman on the narrow foot-path, who having turned to remonstrate in no very civil terms, suddenly checked herself, and said in a low voice, "Juggling Jack!"

The dwarf started, and looked at the woman with a puzzled air.

She was a middle-aged woman, in the earlier half of middle age; she was shabbily dressed, and had a face that would not have been ill- looking, but that the upper lip was long and cleft, and the lower one unusually large. As the Cheap Jack still stared in silence, she burst into a noisy laugh, saying, "More know Jack the Fool than Jack the Fool knows." But, even as she spoke, a gleam of recognition suddenly spread over the hunchback's face, and, putting out his hand, he said, "Sal! YOU HERE, my dear?"

"The air of London don't agree with me just now," was the reply; "and how are you, Jack?"

"The country air's just beginning to disagree with me, my dear,"

said the hunchback; "but I'm glad to see you, Sal. Come in here, my dear, and let's have a talk, and a little refreshment."

The place of refreshment to which the dwarf alluded was another public-house, the White Horse by name. There was no need to bid the Cheap Jack's white horse to pause here; he stopped of himself at every public-house; nineteen times out of twenty to the great convenience of his master, for which he got no thanks; the twentieth time the hunchback did not want to stop, and he was lavish of abuse of the beast's stupidity in coming to a standstill.

The white horse drooped his soft white nose and weary neck for a long, long time under the effigy of his namesake swinging overhead, and when the Cheap Jack did come out, he seemed so preoccupied that the tired beast got home with fewer blows than usual.

He unloaded his cart mechanically, as if in a dream; but when he touched the pictures, they seemed to awaken a fresh train of thought. He stamped one of his little feet spitefully on the ground, and, with a pretty close imitation of George's dialect, said bitterly, "Gearge bean't such a vool as a looks!" adding, after a pause, "I'd do a deal to pay HIM off!"

As he turned into the house, he said thoughtfully, "Sal's precious sharp; she allus was. And a fine woman, too, is Sal!"

Not long after the incidents just related, it happened that business called Mrs. Lake to the neighboring town. She seldom went out, but a well-to-do aunt was sick, and wished to see her; and the miller gave his consent to her going.

She met the milk-cart at the corner of the road, and so was driven to the town, and she took Jan with her.

He had begged hard to go, and was intensely amused by all he saw.

The young Lakes were so thoroughly in the habit of taking every thing, whether commonplace or curious, in the same phlegmatic fas.h.i.+on, that Jan's pleasure was a new pleasure to his foster- mother, and they enjoyed themselves greatly.

As they were making their way towards the inn where they were to pick up a neighbor, in whose cart they were to be driven home, their progress was hindered by a crowd, which had collected near one of the churches.

Mrs. Lake was one of those people who lead colorless lives, and are without mental resources, to whom a calamity is almost delightful, from the stimulus it gives to the imagination, and the relief it affords to the monotony of existence.

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" she cried, peering through the crowd: "I wonder what it is. 'Tis likely 'tis a man in a fit now, I shouldn't wonder, or a cart upset, and every soul killed, as it might be ourselves going home this very evening. Dear, dear! 'tis a venturesome thing to leave home, too!"

"'Ere they be! 'ere they be!" roared a wave of the crowd, composed of boys, breaking on Mrs. Lake and Jan at this point.

"'Tis the body, sure as death!" murmured the windmiller's wife; but, as she spoke, the street boys set up a l.u.s.ty cheer, and Jan, who had escaped to explore on his own account, came running back, crying, -